Date: Mon May 24 22:33:30 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Looking at game playability, one "unit counter" should signify something like:
-100,000 soldiers
-100 combat aircraft
-2 or 3 major naval vessels
-larger number of smaller ships
As examples, this would put about 20 German units on the front line (7-10
hexes) invading Russia, about 10 air units on each side in the battle of
Britain, and 2 carrier units with 4 air units bombing Pearl Harbor.
The difficulty is finding a way to account for partial losses to units, which
are the norm. For example, in a month of intense action, a 100-plane bomber
unit may lose half its strength, which is a long way from being 100% but also a
long way from being 0%.
I've got my own ideas, as usual, but I'm curious to hear how some of you would
handle this issue. For example: a ground unit is involved in combat. In
addition to "no damage" and "eliminated", how would you like to see partial
losses handled? Likewise, if a carrier unit includes two carriers, how do you
handle the chance that one is sunk and the other still operating?
Date: Tue May 25 06:53:34 2004
Sender: Phil Bradley
Andy, I don't know if you are familiar with any of the GMT games but many of
there games handle losses through steps. They have two scales of units (Army
and corp) when losses occur a player fulfills the number of step losses - an
Army first flips to a reduced strength army, a reduced strength army reduces to
a corp, a healthy corp reduces to a sick corp and finally the unit dies. corps
and armies have different attack/defense tables etc.. if you go to their
website many of there games have pdf files for rules so you can take a look for
yourself (games to look for are barbarossa to berlin or paths of glory). This
sort of system may get messy with so many units already on the board though.
a little off topic..
I'm curious have you seen the game a world at war (formerly named global war
and based off of avalon hill's A3R games)? I had read somewhere that there was
a push to break down all the units to corp level.. I don't know if that was
done or not if it was I'd like to know how that worked out.
Date: Tue May 25 10:29:47 2004
Sender: Tom DeSanctis
Perhaps you can call me ignorant here, but I don't see why you are trying to
make a computer war simulation into a board-game war simulation. Where is it
written in stone that you have to make 1 unit = 100,000 soldiers? Can't you
just say that 108,608 soldiers went into battle at X-hex location and 94,290
came out? Sure you can put troop and/or ship maximum's on certain hexes, but
why limit yourself to the board-game thinking?
And I don't want to hear "that's how it's always been done."
Date: Tue May 25 11:33:16 2004
Sender: Jesse Erdmann
I agree with Tom. That's one of the reasons I loval the Total War series of
games so much. Of course there, each unit also has a commander that influences
the performance of the unit and can be killed, replaced from within the ranks.
Date: Tue May 25 11:45:12 2004
Sender: Phil Bradley
I assume(hoping) that Andy was making approximations on the number of men per
unit (as should be assumed on the amount of area a single hex represents).
There are several inputs into a units strength besides man power...
leadership, training, weapons, support weapons, morale, fatigue. if each unit
is to be worth 100,000 men then the russians are going to have 6 to 10 times
the units then the Germans.. Historically russian "fronts" (armies) contained
about 3 times as many men as whole german armies. I don't guess I'd see the
use in accounting to the man what a unit consists of even if we have the luxury
of a computer to do it for us.
Date: Tue May 25 12:07:07 2004
Sender: Phil Bradley
jesse, I'm not familiar with the total war series you speak of. Are the units
corp level? I don't know if leadership is as feasible for division/army level.
Leadership, i would consider an extremely important aspect of the game but how
do you go about assigning which units belong to which leader on a divisional
level? Maybe there should be a way to create army groups? And then you get
into different command structures for each country let alone for each division
of service. The other concern I would have with having actual leaders is that
without very good research the historical integrity of the game will crumble.
to many this won't matter but to a lot of serious wargamers/historians it will
be an annoyance and the game won't be taken very seriously.
Date: Tue May 25 12:28:40 2004
Sender: Jesse Erdmann
Oops, I didn't mean to suggest leaders for groups with Axis Tide. The reason
it works with Medieval: Total War and Shogun: Total War is that they are set in
times with pretty small (by comparison) armies. I haven't played the older
Shogun, but in Medieval the unit sizes range from 10-100 men depending on the
type. The commanders are given a command rating and the highest rated one will
be given overall control (unless there's a member of the royal family or
otherwise titled commander leading a unit with a rating lower than a
non-royal/non-titled commander) over the combined army. Rome: Total War is
coming soon, BTW.
What I was pointing out was that I really think for a computer simulation we
should be able to have something a little more detailed than five states of
unit strength.
Date: Tue May 25 13:01:58 2004
Sender: Phil Bradley
i see... I agree that the more detail the better but on the other hand unit
strength has to be an abstraction of several components and I don't think a
very accurate representation of a unit can be made if you detail in an atomic
fashion and attempt to be historically correct at the same time. A very good
example of what plagues most games of ww2 genre is that the French actually had
more armor than the Germans. If you leave it up to the players to structure
their own armies using historical figures to determine the number of tanks/size
of units then the Germans would lose in 1940 (unless the french player was not
very good). Therefore gamemakers must make concessions and actually give the
germans more strength so that the simulation will more closely match what
actually happened. The extra strength that the german units have is abstracted
from the historical fact that the germans figured out that massing whole
divisions of armor would have more success then spreading armored units accross
all army divisions (thus thinning out attack strength) which is what the French
did.
Date: Tue May 25 15:23:42 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Phil, I haven't played GMT games but am familiar with step losses. This can
get really ugly in terms of number of counters on the map, as well as number of
counters needed to play. There is also the "four-sided counter" idea, in which
a unit starts with normal orientation and is rotated for losses. I'm not
terribly keen on this either, as it requires extreme care when picking up a
counter to see what's under it and can also be confusing when the map is viewed
from different angles...
I have played A3R and ERS (the system from which a world at war came)
extensively. I really don't like the system used there, where units are
annihilated and rebuilt repeatedly.
Just to clarify, Axis Tide will be a board game, not a computer game. That
online play will be facilitated doesn't change the fact that it is a board
game. (Board games are fundamentally superior for wargames, as the map is too
large for a computer game to do it justice.)
Another aside, French armor divisions existed were quite good. The notion that
they didn't mass armor is due to the fact that they mixed their 1918-era tanks
in with infantry units (in addition to their armored divisions of modern tanks)
- in other words they had enough tanks to do both. In their one and only major
engagement, the French tank divisions were better than the German ones.
Date: Tue May 25 16:56:54 2004
Sender: Klaus Von Meyerinck
I guess it pretty much comes down to the compromise between greatest possible
realism and playability.
The most simple way to simulate losses could be to assign units on a strength
scale from 1 to 10, simulating losses in 1-point-steps.
I would not put together two carriers in one unit anyway since there haven't
been that many carriers in combat that one would risk to lose control.
On another note: Which one and only major engagement between french and german
tanks are you refering to, Andy?
Besides what Phil said rightfully about spreading out armor vs concentrating
it, the german triumph in the french campaign largely depended (next to air
superiority, von Mansteins "Sichelschnitt" and a high morale) on leadership.
Rommel for instance led his "ghost division" right on the field while french
commanders tended to sit well behind the frontlines and shift little symbols
over a map. Anyhow this seems to get interesting, it will be fun to see how
us/british approach and german approach on many battles differ. The Battle of
Britain f.e. is one encounter where you can find tremendous differences in
research and judgement - despite there's no two opinions concerning the
outcome.
Date: Tue May 25 18:14:05 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Again, wouldn't a 10-point scale require additional counters to be printed, so
that you could have enough to mark whatever a unit's current strength was?
That's what I'm hoping to avoid. About single ships, of course that's ideal
from the realism standpoint, but would be unplayable. Major Pacific battles
would involve some 15-25 counters for each side, all in one hex...
I'm not trying to be a pain, I'm just looking for the best solution to a really
tough problem...
The only major battle involving French armor was at Gembloux Gap.
There are a lot of common myths about how the war was fought. Maybe that's the
topic for a different thread. The concept of armored breakthroughs was
overrated, and led to a lot of disasters (for both sides) later in the war.
Actually, the whole notion of massed tanks on defense is silly; the attacker
would just attack where there weren't tanks. Likewise strategic bombing wasn't
nearly as effective as advertised. The notion that France didn't have armored
divisions is equally false.
The quick defeat of France, as best I can tell, had several keys:
1. The allies didn't challenge the Germans in the air. Only about 1/3 of
allied planes flew, and only about once per day. The Germans used everything
they had, flying several missions per day, and were able to control the skies
(a prerequisite for effective bombing). The allies were trying to conserve the
planes for later use, but by then the battle was lost.
2. The allied defenses consisted of three segments. Along the French-German
border, the Maginot line held. In central/northern Belgium, a defensive line
along the Dyle river probably would have held except that it was abandoned.
Between these two there was no fortified position, and only weaker units were
assigned to defend. The Germans knew the geography too, of course, and put a
higher fraction of their units in this area.
3. I'm unclear on this, but it seems the French didn't have much in the way
of a mobile reserve. They had strategic reserves that could be used in
slow-moving battles, but nothing that could be repositioned in the span of a
few days.
4. Western leaders were genuinely scared of German military power, to the
extent that they gave up before the battle was truly lost. The Dutch
surrendered before most of their units had even entered combat. The French
conceded defeat before the Germans had broken out. The British started
retreating before they had entered significant combat. Obviously by acting on
the fear that the Germans were an unstoppable force, it became a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
I'd vote that 1 and 2 be in the players' ability to correct; 3 and 4 be built
into the game (mostly by making French units unrealistically weak).
This is likely a topic for a different thread though.
Date: Tue May 25 18:14:12 2004
Sender: Phil Bradley
Andy, was ERS on a similar scale (unit wise) as A3R?? just curious. I
personally think having corp size units annihlated is ok though the logistics
of controlling/moving all those units is tedious. seeing whole armies disapear
can be a bit damning especially in oos situations.. What was your idea for
handling losses?
Kluas, do you know of any german books of the battle of britian that have been
translated to English? I've found Guderian's (translated) memoirs to be very
insightful and have read some french accounts of the prewar years as well. It
is always interesting to me to see the war from the different points of view.
Date: Tue May 25 18:26:51 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Phil, yes. The ground units were identical, except that due to map scales one
had to swap 3x3 European infantry for 3x2 Pacific ones when making transfers...
There was a different scale used for naval air units (3:1), though regular
(A3R scale) air units were used on both maps.
I think a more nuanced game could be built in which units that would be
destroyed in A3R combat might be inverted, retreat, and reconstituted in place
(rather than going through the process of getting annihilated, rebuilt from
scratch, moved by rail to the front line, and back into combat 3 months later).
The issue of air/naval partial losses might not work so nicely in such a
system though.
Date: Wed May 26 07:03:44 2004
Sender: Phil Bradley
>The concept of armored breakthroughs was overrated.
I gotta kindly disagree with that statement. breakthroughs were a significant
factor of success in war otherwise the french and russian fronts would have
become stagnant ala ww1. the psychological effect on front line infantry was
trememdous.. overruns occured frequently, and the Germans very well could have
gave themselves even more time (and perhaps force a peace with Britian) had
hitler not chickened out of letting his generals finish the job in dunkirk.
furthermor massed armor on defense isn't as silly as it sounds it IS the
effective mobile reserve and has the ability to counter attack and lash out at
a spearheads flank. Spreading tanks out among the infantry units allowed them
to become pinned down in pointless battles - they became worthless and could
not mount any sort of counter attack.. I will grant to you that the germans
appreciated the concept of combined force much more so than the allies and
therefore maximized the effect of armored attacks with the combined use of air
and mechanized infantry. The germans also meticulously planned the invasion
down to the last minute but had a good enough officer corp to be flexible when
the plan went off course. The bottom line is that the germans were fighting
WW2 while the French were still fighting WW1 and expecting a stagnant front.
I apologize in advance for being off topic
Date: Wed May 26 07:48:25 2004
Sender: Tom DeSanctis
Ah... I was of the assumption this was to be a computer simulation.
I have never been interested in board-game war simulations, unfortunately. I
will remove myself from the discussions and wish you luck with your
development.
Date: Wed May 26 15:40:02 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
"Breakthroughs" were very important, leading to the huge encirclements in
Russia. It's the "armor" that I disagree with. There seems to be absolutely
zero difference between the effectiveness of the German armor and foot infantry
units in the advances.
The notion of how armor should be used (and a common misperception of how it
was used) is that armor would be a modern equivalent of cavalry. The catch is
that, unlike horses, tanks can't run on grass and have to hold up every few
hours to refuel. Additionally, tanks run way better on roads than they do
cross-country, and thus were subject to hold-ups that infantry didn't have to
deal with. The net effect is that infantry units advanced as quickly as
armored ones.
My feeling is that overwhelming numbers at the point of attack, disruption of
communications, and air supremancy were the keys to the breakthrough. Not the
presence of massed armor. Were massed armor the key, the repeated German
counteroffensives in 1944-1945 would have been more successful. American tanks
sucked, after all, so the Germans should have been able to use their superior
tanks to rampage through the countryside.
While I'm on the topic, the German army was less mechanized than nearly every
opponent it faced, including Poland and Belgium. The only truly motorized
infantry units were American. British infantry were fairly well motorized as
well. But even so, German mechanized infantry weren't able to advance
noticeably faster than foot infantry, thanks to the requirements of fuel and
terrain limitations.
Date: Wed May 26 16:25:01 2004
Sender: Klaus Von Meyerinck
Maybe we should open up a seperate thread to discuss those WW II topics...
Nevertheless I have to agree with Phil and disagree with Andy. Without
generalizing too much it's obvious that german successes over the first 3 years
of WW II relied not only but heavily on the concept of massed armor and the
Wehrmacht's superior abilities to move. German concept was to combine air
force, tanks and infantry in a way the would revolutionize the battlefield. Be
it France or especially Russia, the concept was to mass tanks, break through
enemy lines and advance, then encicle enemy armys, no matter whether some
infantry was put in your way later on. German tanks were by far advancing
faster than infantry, the concept was to encircle the opponent while infantry
had to follow up asap, fighting down any resistance on their way. That was the
basic concept of the Kesselschlacht, a concept germans even followed in
Stalingrad where it could not succeed. Dunkirk was partly a consequence of this
concept as well, Hitler ordered the german tank divisions to stop not only
because Goering claimed the destruction of GB's expedition corps for the
Luftwaffe but because he was worried about his far advanced tank corps and
their open flanks. In Russia the german triumphes in the first 2 years were
based on that concept as well: Keep moving, move fast, keep initiative. Of
course air superiority helps with all that and even the entire structure of the
Luftwaffe supports Phils and my point: It was a pure tactical force, the
germans lacked any ability of powerful strategic bombing. The first and
foremost goals of the Luftwaffe have been: gaining air superiority, giving
close air support for ground troops.
The 44/45-counter attacks do not change anything in that theory as there have
not been any significant counter attacks other than the battle of the bulge
which was planned after the exact same concept of tank breakthrough and rapid
advance towards Antwerp with infantry cleaning up the rest. Despite german PzKw
V and VI, Panther and Tiger/Königstiger, have been far superior to the Sherman
they have been far outnumbered in nearly every encounter and therefore did not
have much effect. Other than that the total allied air superiority killed all
german efforts on the ground. In the Battle of the Bulge the germans could not
move quickly (in the few first days when wheather pinned down allied air
forces) because the terrain did not allow fast movement. Narrow streets and
deep forrests in the Ardennes allowed fast movement of the small and light
tanks I, II and III in 1940 but not of the heavy Tigers who jammed and
destroyed the roads they were using.
Of course - speaking of the french campaign - there have been other effects as
well: air superiority, well lead german forces, ill led french forces and a
sudden breakdown of morale and even panic in the french troops when they hadn't
been beaten yet (as Andy mentioned in another thread). But this happened
largely because of the german concept. After Rommels tanks crossed the river
Meuse, word in the french army spread out that german tanks had broken through
in masses and suddenly they were reported and seen everywhere.
Ok, this is going out of hands, could write on and on. Maybe we really should
open up a thread where those who like can discuss WW II events.
Date: Wed May 26 18:39:58 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
The weakness of German tanks off-road was problematic throughout the war. A
large part of the trouble was because 90% of the vehicles in a tank division
were wheeled and thus incapable of off-road travel (or even on-road travel
during muddy seasons in Russia). Also German tanks in general tended to be
overweight, underpowered, and didn't have wide enough treads. So off-road woes
make a nice excuse for the Bulge failures, but it was no less of a problem
there than it was other times in the war. Indeed, this is why foot soldiers
were able to keep pace with tanks during rapid invasion of Russia. If you walk
10 hours per day for three months, you'll get quite a long ways...
I don't really think the French soldiers were the cowards they are often
portrayed to be. After all, nearly 100,000 died in the campaign. Rather, they
were mismanaged. (It's probably a moot point for Axis Tide; the combat
effectiveness of a poorly-led corps with good soldiers is as bad as that of a
well-led corps with bad soldiers.)
I'm not trying to say that everything Phil and Klaus says is wrong; I just wish
you'd take a more critical look at the storyline for what happened in WWII
because some parts of it don't hold up to scrutiny.
Anyway, I've posted several main points to start a new thread on the topic;
let's continue this there...
Date: Wed May 26 22:30:27 2004
Sender: Jeff Luddington
Guys after reading the posts I find myself very confused, and so I'd like to
ask a question...
To play this game do you need to be an expert in WW2 tactics? I ask because it
seems to me we could very easily get bogged down in the details. Certainly
this would be great in terms of realism, but it could become far too
complicated to be playable for the 'average joe'.
Now I know my comments haven't added much value, but I figured I'd throw them
in anyway so you guys know I'm actually paying attention.
Date: Wed May 26 23:33:49 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
No. It helps to have people batting around ideas during the design, but the
eventual goal is to create a playable game. In other words, a lot of the
detailed considerations will be built into the game design, not something you
have to know to play it.
Date: Fri May 28 06:27:11 2004
Sender: Scott C Edwards
Andy,
I am a Army vet who served many years in the armor. The ONLY reason armor
exisit is for breakthroughs. You mass your tanks, and you slam them as hard and
as fast and as far as you can. If you have never been an infantry man with a
company of tanks rushing down on you, its hard to imagine. The French's main
problem was doctrine like every one said. They actually, on the average, had
very good tanks. They pissed them away, scattering them throughout the infantry
divisions. Very few were used in mass formations. You must have aircover to
mass armor formations though. You must also have secure supply lines. The most
valuable vehicle of WW2 was the US 2 1/2 truck. It kept the gas and ammo
coming.
Date: Fri May 28 06:57:30 2004
Sender: Jeff Luddington
My wife is Russian-Korean, and often we get to talking about the war. The
other day she told me that 20 million Russians dies in World War 2. 20
million... is that right?
Anyhow today it got me to thinking... is there some way we can bring civilians
into this (in terms of defense)? Perhaps we could make it so a country could
encourage the use of civilians (more or less) on a defensive ground action.
This might provide a little extra defense (obviously less than a soldier), but
at the same time would lower the population which might have an impact on the
economy or morale of the people.
Again, not sure if it can be used but I think civilians played a huge role in
the war.
Date: Fri May 28 08:44:44 2004
Sender: Phil Bradley
20 million? I've seen varying accounts (and don't remember the "official"
count) The problem with counting russian war dead is that NKVD did a very good
job of hiding the numbers (for various reasons including propaganda) of
military dead. 20 million seems a high number but maybe it is not so far
fetched when you consider that major population centers were under assualt for
years .. Kursk changed hands 3 times, Stalingrad was obliterated and was
heavily contested over a period of a year. Leningrad was under siege for the
better part of 3 years. Add to that the fact civilian evacuations came second
to troop transport and civilian meals/supplies came second to military supplies
and the picture is pretty bleak for the russian civilian.
Date: Fri May 28 12:58:35 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
Scott, see the comments on the blitzkrieg thread. I don't really feel like
rehashing it here, but the popular notions about optimal use of armor and
French use of armor don't match the facts.
The 20 million figure for Soviet deaths is correct if one includes civilians.
The military figure is around 10 million on the battlefield plus 3.3 million
captured who died in concentration camps. Soviet military doctrine was quite
different from western, and involved throwing as many men into a battle as
needed to win it, regardless of casualty rates.
Partisan activity was quite strong in Russia and Yugoslavia throughout the
war (and other places after it became clear the Germans would lose). I'm not
sure simulating them with military units is a good idea -- they weren't 100,000
man units of course -- but the Germans should invoke some occupation cost, in
terms of the large numbers of young men needed to conduct anti-partisan
operations, repair infrastructure damage, as well as other less savory aspects
of German occupation that required men who otherwise could have been soldiers.
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